Colwill Brown

Colwill is a novelist, at Wellspring to work on her second novel. Manuscript and social media consultant, Fiction Editor at Pangyrusmagazine, and Editor at GrubWrites, when Colwill isn’t writing, she is developing marketing and communications for Wellspring, reviewing fiction submissions, helping writers develop and publish their personal essays, or interviewing authors. Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, Colwill defected to the States in the winter of 2011. She was educated at Leeds University, where she received her B.A. with Honors in English Language and Literature (International), with stints at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the Kansas State University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program, where she was awarded the Seaton Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing. Most recently, Colwill completed a master’s degree in English Literature at Boston College, where she was awarded a full scholarship and the Henry Blackwell Essay Prize. Her creative work has appeared in Solstice Literary Magazine, The Conium Review, Poetry & Audience, and other places, and is forthcoming in the anthology Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet (Press 53, Fall 2018). Her essays and interviews have featured on Dead Darlings and GrubWrites. She’s served on the editorial team for Post Road magazine and The Conium Review, presented at the AWP Conference, and has received scholarships to GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program and the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Colwill is an instructor at GrubStreet, the nation’s leading creative writing center, where she teaches the novel, and where she was formerly the Marketing and Community Engagement Manager before accepting the Wellspring fellowship. She is represented by literary agent Robert Guinsler of Sterling Lord Literistic. Click here to find out more.

Jonathan Escoffery

Jonathan’s family emigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica to escape the political violence that swept the island in the 1970s. He was raised in Miami, where he received his undergraduate education. He graduated from FIU with his B.A. in English Literature. While attending high school and college, Jonathan worked as a dishwasher, a server, a loader in two separate warehouses, an overnight freight associate, an unlicensed physical therapist, a leasing agent, a (failed) life insurance salesman, and a night auditor. Jonathan is the recipient of The Writers’ Room of Boston‘s 2017 Ivan Gold Fellowship, a 2017 Somerville Arts Council Artist Fellowship, and a 2017 Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship. His story, “In Flux,” was selected by Tiphanie Yanique to win the 2016 Waasnode Fiction Prize. About Jonathan’s stories, author Jennine Capó Crucet wrote, “I wanted to read more from this writer, as there’s an urgency to each piece that says ‘Hello, I am a true force.’” Jonathan is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing MFA Program (Fiction, class of 2014), where he was a DOVE Fellow. In 2014, he was a Fellow at The Anderson Center. He has taught classes in poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction at the University of Minnesota, and at GrubStreet in Boston, where he is an instructor, writing consultant, and was formerly the Program and Advocacy Manager. Jonathan’s linked story collection examines a racially ambivalent Jamaican-American’s struggle to locate identity in Miami. His collection is represented by Renee Zuckerbrot at MMQLIT.

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“The quiet has nothing to do with the number of guests, the season, a sun-filled morning or a blizzard raging outside. It is not a lonely, empty quiet, but the product of lushness, of fullness, and warmth.”

—The Toast

“A clean and comfortable house in a gorgeous setting.”

—The Huffington Post

“There’s really a magical element, a creative energy, to that house.” I found being there was so productive—I couldn’t have written my book without it.”